Six-Legged Soldiers

Using Insects as Weapons of War

Jeffrey A. Lockwood

First book to offer a comprehensive account of the many ways in which insects have been used as weapons

Engagingly written narrative by a Pushcart Prize- and John Burroughs Award-winning author

Includes a critical and constructive analysis of today's defenses-and the dangerous shortcomings in terms of homeland security strategies-with respect to entomological attacks.

New to this Edition:

Updated account of the use of insects for psychological torture, as revealed by CIA torture memos released in 2009

Six-Legged Soldiers

Using Insects as Weapons of War

Jeffrey A. Lockwood

Description

In Six-Legged Soldiers, Jeffrey A. Lockwood paints a brilliant portrait of the many weirdly creative, truly frightening, and ultimately powerful ways in which insects have been used as weapons of war, terror, and torture. He concludes with a critical analysis of today's defenses--and homeland security's dangerous shortcomings--with respect to entomological attacks. Beginning in prehistoric times and building toward a near and disturbing future, the reader is taken on a journey of innovation and depravity. Lockwood, an award-winning science writer, begins with the use of A remarkable story of human ingenuity--and brutality--Six-Legged Soldiers is the first comprehensive look at the use of insects as weapons of war, from ancient times to the present day.

Six-Legged Soldiers

Using Insects as Weapons of War

Jeffrey A. Lockwood

Author Information

Jeffrey A. Lockwood is Professor of Natural Sciences & Humanities at the University of Wyoming, where he teaches in the department of philosophy and in the MFA program in creative writing. His work has been included in the popular anthology Best American Science and Nature Writing, and he is winner of both a Pushcart Prize and the John Burroughs Award. He is the author of Grasshopper Dreaming: Reflections on Killing and Loving and Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier.

The world recently learned that the Islamic State in Iraq (ISIS) has resurrected a biological weapon from the second century. Scorpion bombs are being lobbed into towns and villages to terrorize the inhabitants.

What are those super-fast, reddish, fuzzy-looking, centipede-like things? It would sure help hapless entomologists if people would provide just a teensy bit more information when asking, 'What is it?' sorts of questions. Helpful clues include things like: where you live, where you saw it, etc.

In this article, Professor Jeff Lockwood answers a query regarding the possibility of exterminating all cockroaches. He replies: 'A world without cockroaches would pretty much keep on doing what it's doing now. Probably. At least if by 'all cockroaches' you mean the species that share our homes.'

By Jeff Lockwood If people have told you that daddy-longlegs are deadly, then those people are dead wrong. This tale is debunked on the website of the University of California Riverside, and I trust my colleagues at UCR. I know a several of the entomologists there, and they're a really smart bunch of scientists (a claim that one might question, given that they chose to live in Riverside, but my concern is for their entomological acumen, not their geographic aesthetics). So, I'm going to use what they say about daddy-longlegs and if you end up dying from a bite, then it's on them.

By Jeff Lockwood It's hard to know what any organism experiences. For that matter, I'm not even sure that you feel pain'or at least that your internal, mental states are the same as mine. This is the 'other minds' problem in philosophy. At least other people can tell us what they feel (even if we can't be certain that their experience is the same as ours), but we can't even ask insects.